1908

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1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year that started on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1908

January

• January 12 – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time.
• January 13 – A fire at the Rhoads Opera House in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. kills 170.
• January 24 – Robert Baden-Powell begins the Boy Scout movement.

February

• February 1 – King Carlos I of Portugal and Infante Luis Filipe are shot dead in Lisbon.
• February 12 – The first around-the-world car race, the 1908 New York to Paris Race, begins.
• February 18 – Japanese immigration to the U.S.A. is forbidden.

March

• March 4 – The Collinwood School Fire, near Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., kills 174.
• March 21 – Frenchman Henri Farman pilots the first passenger flight.
• March 27 – The first overseas Scout Troop is formed in Gibraltar.

April

• April 20 – Sunshine train disaster: Two trains collide in Melbourne,Australia, killing 44 people and injuring more than 400.[1]
• April 21 – Frederick Cook claims to have reached the North Pole on this date.
• April 27 – The 1908 Summer Olympics begin in London.

May

• May 26 – At Masjid-al-Salaman in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil discovery in the Middle East is made. The rights to the resource are quickly acquired by the United Kingdom.

June

• June 30 – The Tunguska event, also known as the Russian explosion, occurs near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire.

July

• July 3 – Young Turk Revolution in the Ottoman Empire: Major Ahmed Niyazi, with 200 followers (Ottoman troops and civilians), begins an open revolution by defecting from the 3rd Army Corps in Macedonia, decamping into the hill country.
• July 6 – Robert Peary sets sail for the North Pole.
• July 11–12 – The steamship Amalthea, housing 80 British strikebreakers while in Malmö harbour, Sweden, is bombed by Anton Nilson; 1 is killed, 20 injured.
• July 23 – Young Turk Revolution: The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) issues a formal ultimatum to Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the constitution of 1876, within the Ottoman Empire. It is restored the following day.
• July 24 – Dorando Pietri wins the Olympic marathon in London in one of the most dramatic arrivals of the Olympic history, only to be disqualified soon afterwards.

August

• August 24 – After an intense power struggle, Sultan Abd al-Aziz IV of Morocco is deposed, and is succeeded by his brother Abd al-Hafiz.

September

• September 17 – At Ft. Myer, Virginia, U.S.A. Thomas Selfridge becomes the first person to die in an airplane crash. The pilot, Orville Wright, is severely injured in the crash but recovers.
• September 27 – Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.

October

• October 5 – Bulgaria declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire; Ferdinand I of Bulgaria becomes Tsar.
• October 6 – The Bosnian Crisis begins after the Austro-Hungarian Empire annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina.

November

• November 6 – Western bandits Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are supposedly killed in Bolivia, after being surrounded by a large group of soldiers. There are many rumors to the contrary however, and their grave sites are unmarked.

December

• December 2 – Child Emperor Pu Yi ascends the Chinese throne at age 2.
• December 16 – Construction begins on the RMS Olympic at the Harland and Wolff Shipyards in Belfast.
• December 28 – An earthquake and tsunami destroys Messina, Sicily and Calabria, killing over 70,000 people.

Undated

• Due to the evidence collected by Roger Casement, Léopold II of Belgium is forced to make reforms in the Congo, which is his personal colony.
• The Children's Encyclopedia is first published.
• Henri Matisse opens his own art academy in France.
• A 40,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton is found at Le Moustier in southwest France.

Births

1908 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1908
MCMVIII
Ab urbe condita 2661
Armenian calendar 1357
ԹՎ ՌՅԾԷ
Bahá'í calendar 64 – 65
Bengali calendar 1315
Berber calendar 2858
Buddhist calendar 2452
Burmese calendar 1270
Byzantine calendar 7416 – 7417
Chinese calendar 丁未年十一月廿八日
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